Beer cheaper than water?

Warning to Dave Wynne, I think I found your heaven...

So I'm heading back towards Bratislava in Slovakia because of one simple fact, my guide book says that the price of beer is cheaper than water. This I gotta see...

I meet up with some Serbian-Australians called Rebbecca and Miller and a Brazilian called Mariella. We spend the day sweating and wandering the city in 35 degree heat soaking up the sites. Bratislava has an "old town" area much like all the other cities in Eastern Europe, a bunch of extremely modern and random bits of architecture, and a familiar contrasting post-soviet feel. By that I mean they have old castles and churches, large grey Soviet-era apartment blocks and a completely random UFO bridge!

We watch a Soccer game as it seems like the thing to do when the Soccer world cup is on. The pub is just around the corner from the hostel but its not like we can venture very far anyway as there is a rather disconcerting amount of thunder, lightning and rain outside. The beer does is in fact turn out to be ultra cheap, I spend about $6 NZ and I'm done like a doggies dinner.

The following afternoon, as the morning is a write-off, we mission to the castle at Devin which is about 25 minutes from central Bratislava. Its a beautiful place on the Danube and I climb to the top and take some good photos of the view. You can see all the way back to Bratislava and across in to Austria which appears to be covered in massive wind turbines.

The castle up close is rather disappointing as it feels like it was actually rebuilt the year before with a bunch of possibly old stones that may have been used in a castle possibly on that particular site. I'm certainly no castle expert but the light switches in the walls and air conditioning really give it away guys...

Deciding that I need some food, I find myself going out for dinner with Steve, Steve and Rob. They're all Uni students from England here for the cheap beer, i.e. my kinda guys. We find ourselves in the Slovak Pub sweating like bastards, fortunately this place serves up some fantastic cheap food, and by this stage the much needed cold beer, we proceed to eat drink and be merry.

The lower floor of the Slovak Pub is actually located in the old sewers of the city and proves to be the only place we can escape the incessant heat.

We hit a Cuban themed bar called Havana with awesome live music and order a Hemingway special thinking that Hemingway is the mans man of the literary world right? so obviously we're ordering a mans man of a cocktail. What arrives turns out to be a rather girly looking cocktail with little umbrellas. Needless to say the Hemingway special is downed rather quickly... in fact rather too quickly as the alcohol content turns out to be a rather manly portion. This speedy introduction of rocket fuel leads to dancing and a touch of grooving if you will.

Heading to the Danube because if there is one thing I've learned so far in Europe its that: if there is a city on the Danube then there shall also be a bunch of bars floating in the river itself. The theory appears to be correct as we descend below the water-line on a dodgy looking boat in to a pumping bar with poles and pole dancing aplenty - no it was not a strip club Dave, it was just your average Slovakian bar.

Eventually we stagger back to the hostel and start chatting to some Mexicans that switch between Spanish, French and English without warning. I'm rather drunk so I don't really notice but one of the Steves speaks fluent French albeit with a hard Scottish accent, its really quite awesome to listen to to be honest.

Waking sometime around 2pm I decide that I need to see the castle on the hill so I climb to the top of Bratislava castle. I'm glad I did really as the view is rather awesome. From this height you can see all the contrasting architecture and landscape; from the Communist-era apartment blocks, to the weird UFO bridge, to the Austrian wind turbines and finally the Danube snaking away in to the distance.

As the evening rolls around I brace myself for another big one because that's what you do in Bratislava. I met some more English students, Max and Jack. We eat more great cheap food and drink more ultra cheap beer. The night turns in to an absolute write off and my memory is limited to a lithely Scottish girl with a high proportion of "breast on chest".

Not a bad city really...

Photos are here: